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With the 35-year run of market fundamentalism revealing its moral and economic bankruptcy, the American people need you to challenge this failed ideology.

I am writing in the wake of the Republican “convention,” where, intermixed with the carnivalesque moments, vintage George Wallace law-and-order rhetoric, rank xenophobia and 1930s-era isolationism, came ideologically threadbare calls for the same old, same old: “freedom” from taxes and government regulations, and, as the platform insists, the need to “rein in out-of-control spending.”

There’s just one problem with this. Deregulation, limits on state and federal governmental spending, the privatization of basic services—what academics call “neoliberalism”—has been a proven and massive failure, except for one group: the top 1%. Widespread anger at being left behind, even screwed, by these policies has fueled support for Sanders and Trump, although with very different imagined solutions. Even a research wing of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in a recent article titled, “Neoliberalism: Oversold?,” admits that some neoliberal policies have “increased inequality.” Indeed, the top 1% of the world reportedly now has as much wealth as the rest of the planet. When the other 99% can’t buy as many goods and services as they used to, it stalls economic growth. One solution? “Redistribution” by relying on “taxes and government spending,” especially to minimize the impact of neoliberal policies on “low-income groups,” the IMF researchers write. In addition, instate “predistribution policies”—such as increased spending on education and training—“to [expand] equality of opportunity.”

In his convention speech, Paul Ryan noted that “people want a big change in direction for America.” But the “changes” Republicans propose rest on a return to discredited policies of yore: 1920s-style rabid anti-immigration (although this time with the infamous border wall that could cost an estimated $25 billion), the blindered isolationism of the 1930s, the anti-black “law and order” crack-downs of the 1960s (and beyond) and the trickle-down economics of the 1980s.

We do need a change, just the opposite of what the GOP proposes. So, dear Hillary, we need you to take up the charge initiated by Bernie Sanders and drive a stake in the heart of neoliberalism. Except please don’t call it that. Aside from being jargony, it suggests that somehow liberalism is at the core of these greedy, heartless policies when it isn’t. It’s market fundamentalism.

You’ll have to repudiate various of your husband’s policies: welfare “reform” (where now some people only have food stamps to live on), the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall that led to the 2008 financial crisis, the now-infamous 1994 crime bill that led to skyrocketing mass incarceration (especially of people of color). And then there are your own ties to Wall Street and neoliberal economic advisors (Larry Summers) and a record of partially or wholly market-based policy proposals (healthcare). Indeed, one of the reasons many progressives don’t trust or support you is because of your and your husband’s complicity with advancing the interests of elites—and “the market”—over everyday people.

But with the 35-year run of market fundamentalism revealing its moral and economic bankruptcy, the American people need you to challenge this failed ideology. Despite neoliberalism’s conquest of much of the Democratic Party, we hoped Obama could change course given how the Great Recession exposed the ravages of unchained capitalism. He made some progress, however compromised, with the stimulus package, Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. But the 2010 elections put an end to that hope and change.

Hillary: The time is now. We need you to rebrand taxes and government spending as investments in the country and our future. We need new bridges and roads, reinvigorated public schools and universities, job training and retraining programs, a much more robust safety net for the poor and vulnerable, that $15 minimum wage, student debt forgiveness and more low-interest student loans, paid parental leave, and much more. And we must, must reverse the march toward ever-greater income inequality.

With the Republican Party in shambles, it is exactly the time to expose market fundamentalism for what it is: policies by elites, for elites. They have damaged the country, our politics and too many people for too long. And wouldn’t it be great if it were a woman who had the guts to do it in?

Susan J. Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and an In These Times columnist. Her latest book is Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work is Done (2010).

This is the problem with liberals: they stick to discredited politicians who betrayed them just because they call themselves 'democrats.' Hillary won't turn back the pro-corporate drift; she epitomizes it.

Posted by edover3@gmail.com on 2016-09-11 11:34:28

Susan Douglas seems to suffer from the disease called "wishful thinking." Maybe a week in the hospital would restore her to a more normal state of mind. As my old mother used to say, "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

Posted by phillip sawicki on 2016-09-08 16:41:26

Thank you, Fanghorn. You hit the nail on the head. You're very awake and wise. Thank you for existing. Gives me hope in this menial world.

Posted by Sunday Gardénia on 2016-09-06 08:42:53

What heart?

Posted by bbcy on 2016-09-06 00:20:42

Unfathomable depths of denial at work in this piece.

Posted by Dayoub Alimi on 2016-08-30 17:11:52

Douglas concludes, "And wouldn’t it be great if it were a woman who had the guts to do it in (market fundamentalism)?"

Wouldn't it be great if ANY president did it in??? It has nothing to do with gender, it's the ideology stuffed inside the brain and Hillary Clinton has a brain FULL of neoliberalism. She would have to do the biggest about-face as to her trained brain to listen to Douglas.

I suggest the writer snap a selfie of herself begging and send it to Clinton, caption it, "PLEASE, PLEASE, become a lefty!" That's what this article seems equivalent to.

Posted by Jon Barber on 2016-08-29 04:27:18

The first thing I would "do" is to wake people up to the fact that the 10-20% "knowledge workers" of various stripes have taken over the democratic party wholesale, and have been acting against the interests of their (potential) "base" in pretty much the same way the R party elites do. I'm sure ordinary people (as opposed to "educated liberals") mostly know this already, at least on a gut level; but words get in the way, thanks to education, the media/bloviating classes, etc. But still, education *can* liberate. So I am mostly interested in helping people "arm" themselves against (self-interested) bullshit. And since I don't live in the US, it's not like I can do grassroots advocacy work (nor would I be a very obvious choice for it); so I limit myself to encouraging those who are comfortable with reading, who self-identify as "progressive" (or actually egalitarian/socialist/anarchist), to read certain books that I know will help them become more aware of why things are going the way they are, and how stuff works.

Posted by Fangorn on 2016-08-28 08:53:30

There are a lot of class and cultural differences between professionals, workers and the poor, often minority, who are likely to be menial workers or unemployed or incarcerated. The 1% are the people with solidarity. Those things have proven difficult to overcome given the state of media ownership and the mobility of capital. What would you do about this?

Posted by StanH on 2016-08-27 21:02:35

I don't understand: what is the point in writing this article, other than to suggest, by implication, that the best and only recourse people have is to appeal to "leaders" over and over again to do the "right thing"? Newsflash: they believe this to be the "right" thing, or at least the bestest thing they "can" hope for, "given the circumstances". This is called professional/apolitical myopia, and it functions on the basis of the notion that "if both sides are unhappy, you've attained the 'mature' outcome". They are not going to stop thinking this way: for the why, see Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal, which contains an in-depth historical and intellectual analysis of how the democratic party was "reoriented" -- co-opted -- by baby-boomer-gen professionals who wanted to turn the dem party into one "attractive" to other professionals like themselves, who were repulsed by the ideological nature of politics, and/or by the presence of 'common' (as well as colored) people. Hence Clinton 1's escalation of the program to immiserate & lock up the black population.

Posted by Fangorn on 2016-08-27 14:59:46

Hilary Clinton's paperwork will not be available to after the election.....REMOVE HER FROM THE BALLOT - I'll bet her paperwork will appear as it magic

Posted by William Bednarz on 2016-08-27 09:31:24

you'd sooner convince Trump he's not all that

Posted by daeder on 2016-08-26 22:33:10

Sadly both Trump and Clinton would fit the neoliberal agenda.

Posted by Sarah on 2016-08-25 04:31:54

Fat chance! The Clintons are all about neoliberalism, why would you be so naive as to believe they would go another way now?

Posted by Greg M. Schwartz on 2016-08-25 01:29:15

I can assure you this piece fell on deaf ears at the Clinton campaign HQ.